James Cameron Talks Avatar 2

Director James Cameron talked to ABC’s “Nightline” recently about Avatar 2, which won’t be coming to theaters until December of 2014. While we wait, he offered up some details of what we can expect from the follow-up to the film that earned $2.782 billion at the worldwide box office.

Asked what he can tell us about the sequel, he said, “It’s on Pandora. Well, I’m really writing the second and third films together, so it completes a kinda three film story arc. And we will see the oceans of Pandora, which we haven’t seen at all and that’s an ecosystem that I’m dying to start designing because it’s going to look spectacular.”

He added that the next film “narrows the spotlight instead of just nature in general or the rainforest. It focuses it a little more on ocean issues, because we have a planet that’s a blue planet. From a distance, you look at it, the Earth is a lot more blue than it is, you know brown, the land mass. We’re making the oceans unsurvivable for a lot of the species right now. For a lot or reasons. It’s just a way to focus a little energy in that direction.”

He then revealed a bit more in the interview. “And there will be other planets as well, besides Pandora. It will be a cornucopia, a treat for the eyes,” he said.

Cameron added that he’s certainly not taking credit for everything though. “I get to imagine things at a kind of fuzzy level and then I bring in a lot of great artists and they come up with all the amazing creatures and plants and that sort of thing.”

Asked whether he will approach the new films differently, he said, “”I think it’s just a continuation of the same thing. I want people to feel that same sense of excitement about that world. You know, the fictional Na’vi people and I want them to feel that excitement of discovery of a new world that they’re going to see things that they haven’t imagined. All that sort of the perk package of the first movie is still going to be there. And the themes will be there and be played out in a way that I think people can accept.”

But he did say he’s not going to stuff the environmental issues down our throat. “I’m not going to become more strident. I’m not going to say, ‘well, we got away with this much environmental content in the first movie, now there’s double.’ Because I think that would be a mistake. It has to be entertainment first and foremost.”